We end this essay, therefore, with a sentiment of ridicule, in which we laugh at our own selves, that of having dreamed of making a perfect monograph, and of having produced nothing more than a little tumbled fantasy, which ironically steals away out of sight, like that minuscular mouse, of which the mountain was once upon a time delivered in much moaning.
What matter! We must end. Let us hide our melancholy retreat by humming this last lovely burden of a poet of the school of Clairville--
'Tis called a /Pépin/, a /Riflard/, And other viler names there are; Not one of all the Umbrella moves. Wisely it counts them no disgrace; Since--child of April's art--the loves Oft make their quivers of its case!
Well, my dear friend, here I am, faithful as you see to my appointment; I am come deliberately to fulfil my promise, which I so imprudently gave on a certain day last season, upon a Breton strand, you remember, while contemplating one of your rosy little hands, which was whipping its sister with a long Swedish glove, in a sort of angry pet, and gave to you an appearance of wild and exquisite bluster?
How did you manage, O Enchantress, to induce me to give my loyal word that I would write for you the /History of the Glove/? How! . . . who can ever say? When a pair of pretty eyes envelop you, and bathe you with their radiance, when a smile puts honey into your heart, and a tiny little hand is stretched out with open palm, seeming to say, "Take me," every kind of will melts quickly away, consent mounts delightedly to the lips, and we promise at once everything, before we know well what we are asked.
Ah, unhappy me! it is the Glove of Nessus which you have placed upon my hand! The History of the Glove! why, it is the history of the world; and I should be very ill-advised if I pretended /avoir les Gants/ to be the first to tell that history, as ancient as it is universal.
Haunted by this debt of honour, contracted to please you, I went lately to see a learned old friend of mine, a venerable Benedictine--better than a well of science; an ocean of indulgence--to whom I exposed my foolish enterprise of the Glove and the Mitten.
Ah, my friend, I only wish you could have seen him all at once leap from his seat, look at me with compassion, examine me profoundly with his eye, and murmur three times in a tone of ineffable astonishment and sadness, as though he believed me mad--